Six questions to national standardisation bodies

1. Application independence?
2. Supporting pre-existing Open Standards?
3. Backward compatibility for all vendors?
4. Proprietary extensions?
5. Dual standards?
6. Legally safe?

http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-questions

OOXML Fails to Gain Approval in US

An important factor in the V1 vote was the large number of members who joined very late in the process. At the start of the year, V1 had only 7 voting members. But by Friday's meeting V1 had 26 voting members. There was a clear pattern in the voting where the long-time V1 members voted for the "Disapproval, with comments" position as well as "Abstention, with comments" while the newer members voted overwhelmingly "Yes, with comments" and against "Abstention with comments." This is not surprising since the new members were largely Microsoft business partners.

http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/07/ooxml-fails-to-gain-approval-in-us.html

Women in Film

Women in Art

2008: Year of the Linux Desktop

"A monkey could download and install Ubuntu Feisty in the time it takes most people to decide which version of Vista to drop a day's pay on."

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/2008_year_of_the_linux_desktop

Curious creature caught off Keahole Point

What appears to be a half-squid, half-octopus specimen found off Keahole Point on the Big Island remains unidentified today and could possibly be a new species, said local biologists.

http://starbulletin.com/2007/07/05/news/story03.html

Sun ODF Plug in 1.0 for Microsoft Office Available Now as a Free Download

Microsoft Office users can now import and export to Open Document Format (ODF). The Sun ODF Plug in for Microsoft Office gives users of Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint the ability to read, edit and save to the ISO-standard Open Document Format. The ODF Plug in is available as a free download from the Sun Download Center (SDLC)

http://www.sun.com/software/star/openoffice/

Wiki Mind Map

WikiMindMap is a tool to browse easily and efficiently in Wiki content, inspired by the mindmap technique. Wiki pages in large public wiki's, such as wikipedia, have become rich and complex documents. Thus, it is not allways straight forward to find the information you are really looking for. This tool aims to support users to get a good structured and easy understandable overview of the topic you are looking for.

http://www.wikimindmap.org/

Pick up the pieces